Davydov - Allegro de Concert, Op. 11 (Urtext edition, Piano Version)
Davydov - Allegro de Concert, Op. 11 (Urtext edition, Orchestra Score)
Davydov - Allegro de Concert, Op. 11 (Urtext edition, Orchestra Parts)

Karl Yulievich Davydov (1838–1889) was a preeminent Russian cellist, composer, and pedagogue whose influence shaped the golden era of Russian cello performance. Born in Goldingen (present-day Kuldīga, Latvia), he grew up in a musically gifted household (his father, a physician, was also an amateur violinist) and spent much of his childhood in Moscow, where elite musicians frequented the family home. Though he initially pursued mathematics at St. Petersburg University, Davydov soon committed himself fully to music. He earned a professorship in cello at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and later served as its director. His cello studio became internationally renowned for its rigorous yet inspiring instruction, training some of Russia’s most distinguished cellists, including Aleksandr Verzhbilovich, Alfred von Glenn and others. Pyotr Tchaikovsky referred to Davydov as “the czar of cellists,” and dedicated his Italian Capriccio to him. César Cui praised him as the greatest not only in technical command but also in artistic taste and nobility. As a performer, Davydov was active at the imperial court, with the Italian Opera Orchestra, and in the Russian Musical Society’s quartet. His St. Petersburg home functioned as a vibrant cultural salon, frequented by the city’s musical elite.

Beyond performance and pedagogy, Davydov was a prolific composer. His output includes four cello concertos, numerous salon pieces (such as Souvenir de Zarizino and À la Fontaine), the well-known Allegro de Concert, and Cello Method, a celebrated etude book published in 1888. He also transcribed many of Chopin’s piano works for cello and piano. In 1870, he was gifted the legendary 1712 Stradivarius cello (previously owned by Count Matvey Vielgorsky), now known as the “Davidov Stradivarius,” later played by Jacqueline du Pré and Yo-Yo Ma. Though Davydov resigned from the conservatory under controversial circumstances in 1886, he continued to compose and perform until his death in Moscow in 1889.

Davydov’s Allegro de Concert, dedicated to the Belgian cello virtuoso and composer François Servais, was perhaps inspired by Chopin’s one-movement concert piece of the same title and key. According to Peter François, Servais and Davydov met during Servais’s visits to Russia in 1857 and 1866, and Davydov regularly performed Servais’s works, among them a documented performance of Souvenir de Spa in the Gewandhaus on 30 January 1862. The influence of Servais on Davydov is evidenced especially in the virtuosic writing in Allegro de Concert. 

In sonata form, Allegro opens in A minor with an orchestral tutti presenting the first theme, followed by the solo exposition, including two thematic groups in the typical tonic and dominant keys. The development begins in E major, with the solo section in D minor. The retransition briefly moves back to E major. The recapitulation begins with the secondary thematic group, since the primary thematic material is thoroughly developed earlier in the piece and ends triumphantly in A major. The overall trajectory of the movement is similar to Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, first movement, composed over 30 years later. The work contains touches of Schumannesque harmony and figuration, but is also full of beautiful Slavic melodies. Thanks to Louis Feuillard’s heavily truncated and altered French edition, the piece has survived in the advanced student repertoire. However, Allegro de Concert deserves broader recognition and should not be relegated solely to pedagogical use, as is often the fate of many virtuosic works by Romantic-era cellist-composers.

Our edition presents, for the first time, a complete orchestral score based on the original Peters orchestra parts (plate no. 4345, 1862). The piano reduction is drawn from the Peters edition of the same year (plate no. 4346), generously provided by Peter François. The edition retains all of Davydov’s original fingerings and bowings in the solo part. Spelling inconsistencies in Italian musical terms have been corrected silently. "Solo" and "tutti" designations in orchestral parts have been removed unless indicating a true solo passage by that instrument. Redundant “suivez” markings during multi-measure rests have also been removed. A complete list of editorial decisions and changes can be found in the critical commentary. It is our hope that this urtext edition will help restore Allegro de Concert to the repertoire it richly deserves.